How To Be A Happier Parent by KJ Dell Antonia

I’m happy to be a contributor to this wonderful new book by KJ Dell Antonia. How to Be a Happier Parent is now available in online bookstores. For now, here’s what the publisher has to say about it:

An encouraging guide to helping parents find more happiness in their day-to-day family life, from the former lead editor of the New York Times’ Motherlode blog.

In all the writing and reporting KJ Dell’Antonia has done on families over the years, one topic keeps coming up again and again: parents crave a greater sense of happiness in their daily lives. In this optimistic, solution-packed book, KJ asks, how can we change our family life so that it is full of the joy we’d always hoped for? Drawing from the latest research and interviews with families, KJ discovers that it’s possible to do more by doing less, and make our family life a refuge and pleasure, rather than another stress point in a hectic day. She focuses on nine common problem spots that cause parents the most grief, explores why they are hard, and offers small, doable, sometimes surprising steps you can take to make them better. Whether it’s getting everyone out the door on time in the morning or making sure chores and homework get done without another battle, HOW TO BE A HAPPIER PARENT shows that having a family isn’t just about raising great kids and churning them out at destination: success. It’s about experiencing joy—real joy, the kind you look back on, look forward to, and live for—along the way.

There are ten mantras for happier parents in the book, and this is the author’s favorite:

Humans are hardwired to focus on the negative. When we train our brains to notice and absorb everyday pleasures–the moments when we are safe and snug and warm with our families around us–we gain a deeper reservoir of joy to bolster us when things get rough.

The book will appear in bookstores and mailboxes everywhere on August 21. If you already know you’re in, you can even pre-order now, at Indiebound, on Amazon, or at BN.com.